RAIN from the rooftop

Remember the Tom Lehrer song
"They're rioting in Africa... duh da dada da da da..."
i mean, egypt, bahrain libya, yemen ( no news there, they're all dead)
and wisconsin!
it is raining buckets here in california
scrubbing the skies
i walked in the rain for it seemed forever
and was wet through when i climbed on the bus
and waited under the awning for a ride
and then i was left there because my rides friend
had a stroke..
and intimate partners are spinning away from me like
drunken tops and
cryptic texts and
frankly... i need another respite in a monastery
or more drugs
do i live here or there
alone or in company
sodden or baked

the truly enlightened suffer for no more than 30 minutes
and me, i'm not even connecting
just observing and taking the ride
but jeez.... soul surfing is a light touch
hanging out in the weightless temple IS what is called for..
which is NOT Zen non attachment nor sedentary depression
but preparation for cloud surfing on shared rainbows

words in the air
snag on your shirt
okay?
indulge me.

The clouds..

..in Northern California are full and heavy
over the bay, pierced by double rainbows
and moist cushions
kind of like how i feel heaven

my friend is the same now
after forty years of life
so rich and moist
heavy with time

wise with the years
having wrung every thing from each moment

i see how caution keeps a watcher
me, a watcher,
as i finally step into the arena

an open heart can steady and balance
a body overblown and
goodnaturedly vengeful
simply paying back the disregard of youth
with the fuck you of age

bodies fall away
even in the fullness of decay
and eyes still pierce and skewer
and know where they belong just beneath
the heart

i am so young
time collapses and
arms cradle
and crush

Life as Story

One coast so much like the other
in our kingdoms by the sea.
Someone wrote something like that,
I am sure.
Life continues to present itself as bas relief
to the pulse underneath.
Tomorrow I visit with a man 40 years
ago I knew as young and strapping
and eager and brave.
And time will collapse and we will see how
our stories have cloaked us
and if the same pulse that we knew
as true blue apassionados
remain.

I wonder as I wander
Wow.

700 Days

I seem to have been up all night.
I have not been up all night since I was in college.
Or sitting on the front steps of Jim's Hollywood cottage
watching the dawn
having tried once again to make love
the two of us... gay and straight
so deeply in love with the other..
still trying to commune physically.
Fools.

We sniffed such beautiful aroma's that night.
The smell the color of pink morning.
Jasmine in February.
And breathing what we knew was love
 we fell more deeply toward each other.

And the night I sat at his bedside in the hospice,
just after I had wheeled him into the night air
to breathe his last breath of sweet
before his sister would come to smother him in his end..
that was the same smell that followed back in to the cave.
 I think he knew.
And then I left him to his crazy sister
and their familial murder.

I hear tell that the next 700 days are pretty important
in the expansion of the planet
and its consciousness.
If that's true... they got me.
Since I have been conscious over twenty four hours
and seem not to be willing, able or leaning toward a lie down.
I wonder if I am mad.
Quite possible of course.

I went to one of those rockem sockem
energy conference things this weekend.
I thought it did not affect me. And here I am.
I gave up trying to sleep a few hours ago and
turned on the television to receive the message
from Robert Frost looking
positively fifty
on CUNY All Night brainiac tv:
"whose woods these are I do not know..
But I have miles to go before I sleep.
     I have miles to go before I sleep."

Yes. This is apparent. There is a speeding up. A desire to get it out into the world.
To do the next play. To give the next gift. To love the next one deeply and long.
Longingly long so that we will twist and dance all through time and space
collapsing into each other and colliding with time as it folds in on itself and us.

I wonder if my body will hold out. There is a tugging even now
in my chest. Not certain if that is digestion or circulation.
My body a reflection of my mental state of course.
I cannot walk unless I walk.
My body stiffens with each move
I do not make
I cannot sleep unless I dream.
I cannot write unless I watch.

The next 700 days will speed us like
Little Black Pink Green Red Sambos
spinning  to butter.
Maybe I will land
and see what pinpoint I can report .

And who will read  I do not know
the woods are lovely dark and deep
but I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep
and miles to go before I sleep.